


Brother Mine

by arpita



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Conflict, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arpita/pseuds/arpita
Summary: Bhalla and Amarendra meet in the afterlife. What do the brothers talk about? Is there room for making peace in death?Prompt on Tumblr by @carminavulcana.
Relationships: Amarendra Baahubali & Bhallaladeva, Amarendra Baahubali/Devasena, Bhallaladeva (Baahubali)/Original Female Character(s), Bhallaladeva/Sivagami (Baahubali)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Brother Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CarminaVulcana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarminaVulcana/gifts), [thelonewolfwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelonewolfwrites/gifts), [Inkn1ght1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkn1ght1/gifts), [MayavanavihariniHarini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayavanavihariniHarini/gifts).



Death doesn’t come very simply for Bhallaladeva, given the fact that the man had literally (and figuratively) been burnt alive. 

Not that he doesn’t acknowledge the difficulty of it. He does, in full measure. 

What he doesn’t understand, however, is what follows. He doesn’t understand the emptiness, the vacuum, the hollow hostility that he faces in the silence that came to him right after he reached this space, his heavy, hardened frame, barely a wisp. For someone who had been reduced to cinders, he was in exceptionally good condition. The abrasions on his skin were gone, as was the blood. Gone was that horrid stench that had filled his nostrils when he had been on his own pyre.

_Gone was his massive aurum likeness. Headless and broken asunder, it was now as worthless as he might have been in the world that would now happily re-adjust to a new order._

“Does it really matter, Brother?” he hears a familiar voice behind him, speaking as if it had read his thoughts.

He, for his part, is not surprised to hear his long-dead brother, and once comrade, Amarendra Baahubali.

“It did, when we had both been alive.” he turns around. 

Amara, is just _Amara._ The Baahu he could trust, the brother he could not love. The companion he had, yet the friend he could not want. 

“How can you be so-” Bhalla flounders for a suitable expression

-“Predictable?” Baahu completes it for him.

“I still hate you.” Bhalla says impassively.

“I know,” Baahu nods, “I knew it all along. Yet, I learnt the hard way.”

“I don’t hate you,” he continued quietly, “I tried. But I couldn’t.”

“You shouldn’t have given up.” Bhalla persists, a little agitated.

“That would have granted me some peace in this wretched afterlife.” he breathes.

“Nothing really makes a difference here, Brother,” the perfect cousin says, “Nothing hurts. Nothing feels good, or bad, for that matter. Spite, envy, love-”

“Oh! Stop sermonising!” Bhalla snapped, cutting him short, “I won’t have them here!”

A moment of silence makes an appearance between them. One feels restless, miffed even, another feels serene, almost sublime.

“Did you desire Devasena?” the question materialises almost out of nowhere.

“Desire Devasena?!” Bhalla spat acrimoniously, “Pray tell, Brother, why would I?”

He should know, he felt. He might have felt a lot of things for that woman, and desire was certainly not one of them. 

Baahubali remained quiet. It felt like a stupid question. 

“I had a wife,” Bhalla spoke shortly. 

“And if you must know,” he continued, “I loved her. And she died, because,”-

-“I know why.” Baahubali does not let his brother complete.

“Quite some comeuppance, isn’t it?” the elder cousin was still caustic, “Your mere, fleeting, memory stole my last chance at humanity.”

“You had Bhadra.” Amarendra doesn’t bother hiding his rising anger.

“She wouldn’t have wanted her child to be raised thus,” he said further, “You raised him to be a pale, coward reflection of yourself.”

“Don’t you dare!” Bhalla roared.

“What else was he?!” Baahubali spoke with his characteristic, quiet ferocity, “A timid brute, with courage only enough to poke at a helpless woman, his own aunt, while imprisoned, speaking disparagingly of her in front of her own son!”

Bhalla closed his eyes. Bhadra’s severed head had been shot right into his own hands. The deed had been done by his cousin’s spawn, and Devasena had carried it to the battle.

“What sort of hatred did you foster, Bhalla?!” he kept speaking, “You failed your mother, by killing her. You even claimed that poor woman who you supposedly loved. Your spite didn’t spare your own son from the jaws of death, and now, here you are-”

- **“Because I didn’t want to end up like my wretched Father!”** Bhallaladeva’s voice boomed through the silence, cutting through Amara’s voice like a sword.

“I DID NOT WANT TO BE DEPRIVED OF MY RIGHTS!” he took a step forward.

“MY RIGHT TO _MY_ MOTHER’S LOVE, TAKEN AWAY ONLY BECAUSE YOU WERE AN ORPHAN! MY RIGHT TO THE THRONE, ALBEIT BOTH OF US WERE _EQUALS!_ MY RIGHT TO A PEACEFUL LIFE, JUST BECAUSE THE GUILT OF KILLING YOU STAYED IN THE WOMAN I LOVED!”

He took a deep breath, letting his words sink in the man facing him.

“Forgive me, Amarendra Baahubali,” he breathed, “Forgive me, for not being divinely perfect!”

“Are you blaming Amma?” Amara’s brows furrowed.

“I cannot blame an absentee mother.” he answered, “Neither can I blame the turn of events that followed after you came into our lives.”

_Hadn’t he been there all along?_

“But I must thank you anyway,” he looked straight in his eyes.

“At least,” Bhalla said, “you’ve given me the satisfaction of knowing that you were, after all, angry.”

“I was,” Amarendra said, “I tried to reconcile, but I couldn’t.”

“You should have fought me when I’d stripped you of the title of The Commander-in-Chief of the Maahishmati army.” Bhalla said.

“I know,” Baahubali said. 

He thought he heard a snort.

“It is not what you think.” Amara spoke, as if answering the snort, “I couldn’t possibly have created a ruckus in front of Amma.”

“Your wife did.” he said.

Amarendra sighed.

“And I gave her her due,” he said, “She wanted me to adorn the Maahishmati Throne,”

-“Which you did, even if you never materially sat on it.” Bhalla told him.

“I won’t apologise.” he persisted.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Baahu said. 

_Circumstance was a strange thing,_ they thought. Neither of them had ever imagined that mere venting would lessen so much of the bitterness.

Nevertheless, for them, life was over, for the better, or for the worse.

Uncertainty would, most definitely not take leave of them. It didn’t desert them in their lives, it hadn’t taken leave of them in the afterlife either.


End file.
